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Paramore Concert Review

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by Sarah St. John

Friday night, the sold-out Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie was packed with mostly teens and early 20-somethings. The 2010 Honda Civic Tour featuring Kadawatha, New Found Glory, Tegan & Sara and the headliner, Paramore, may be one of the biggest tours of the summer.

While concert goers were mostly young people wearing punk/emo clothing and sporting funky hair styles, the crowd was diverse ethnically and otherwise. Even the openers were diverse. While high-pitched Swedish band, Kadawatha, had a short set, it was filled with amazing guitar riffs, piano, techno beats and intoxicating harmonies. American punk band, New Found Glory, was big back in the day (as in 10 years ago). Unfortunately, the audience was too young to know who they were, but they rocked it anyway. Canadian identical twin sisters, Tegan & Sara, seemed to have the biggest fan base of any of the openers, primarily women. They had a long set for an opener, and their harmonies and techno/piano-driven 80’s style music was refreshing.

After three hours of opening bands, the crowd’s anticipation (including former American idol contestant and Rockwall native, Jason Castro, who was spotted in the pit) for Tennessee band, Paramore (Hayley Williams, Josh Farro, Zac Farro, Jeremy Davis and Taylor York), was mounting. While the stage was being set, Paramore would appear on the screen, and the audience would scream and cheer. The black curtain dropped, and strings of light bulbs swayed back and forth as Paramore opened with “Ignorance” and had the crowd on their feet the entire 90 minute set.

Lead singer, Hayley Williams (also known for her vocal appearance in B.o.B’s “Airplanes”) was sporting her dyed-red hair as that is clearly her trademark at this point in her musical career. She is a fireball and full of head-banging energy. But what really stands out about Hayley is her sincere and genuine appreciation for their fans. Several times throughout the evening, she continued to thank their fans for their continued support through the years. At one point in the show, a Waco-based Christian band tossed Hayley Williams their demo CD, and Hayley announced their name to the 6,000+ crowd asking them to check the band out. What musician does that? Most bands wouldn’t even accept the demo let alone give the band a shout out. That’s Hayley for you. I can only imagine the excitement and appreciation that band must’ve felt. I checked them out myself, and they are pretty good.

Paramore played all their hit songs including “That’s What You Get”, “Decode”, “For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic” and “Crushcrushcrush.” They closed the night with their new single, “The Only Exception” set to fireworks and a crowd full of lighters and cell phones swaying. But, the crowd wanted (Para)more, and they hit the stage again with a two-song encore of “Brick by Boring Brick” and “Misery Business” as cannons blasted out confetti.

With six years as a band; several hit songs; the song (“Decode”) featured in one of the biggest film franchises (“Twilight”) in recent years; three albums under their belt: “All We Know is Falling” (2005), “RIOT!” (2007) and “Brand New Eyes” (2009); and high-energy, good clean punk-rock shows, Paramore won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. We want more of Paramore.

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